FORTNITE'S NEW Map is coming this week, but if you want more precise details on when we could see the new patch notes and the release date for this update on PS4, Xbox and PC, then you'll want to read this.

Fortnite Battle Royale Release date, patch notes - UPDATE 1:

Epic has announced that the highly-anticipated update for Fortnite: Battle Royale will be dropping on Thursday.

The update will be changing the map and adding more locations to the arena.

According to a post over on the French Fortnite Facebook page, the update will drop sometime on Thursday (although, as ever, this is subject to change).

You can read the patch notes in full here ahead of the update's release.

We'll keep you updated as more information drops.

Fortnite Battle Royale Map Update Screenshots

Map Update dropping next week for Fortnire Battle Royale, including new spots to juice up the current map.

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ORIGINAL STORY:

Fortnite Battle Royale is due to drop a big new update pretty soon, with a complete refresh for the Battle Royale map, introducing new areas, biomes, and so much more.

We could go on, but there's a lot to cover, so if you want a refresher on exactly what this update will introduce, take a look further down the page.

However, the only detail that fans care about and want to know right now, is when Epic Games are planning to drop this massive new update.

When news broke yesterday about the upcoming changes, a release date was the main thing missing, and so far Epic has only gone as far to say it will be at some point "this week".

Online and in particular the Fortnite Battle Royale Reddit page, is crammed with people trying to find out when Epic will launch the map update.

Thankfully, some sleuths on Reddit seem to have sussed it out, suggesting that the new patch for the game will drop on Wednesday - citing previous tweets from the company that lays out a specific timeline.

"Our current plans are: Patch Notes on Tuesday, Patch deployment on Wednesday. There is a small chance these plans change," wrote the official Twitter account for the game back in November.

Since then, we've seen this logic applied to the game a few times - will it happen again this Wednesday? It seems likely - though that line about being subject to change is worth bearing in mind, of course: live game updates rarely work as smoothly as they're supposed to.

We'll keep you updated as we learn more about the release date for the update.

This comes as Epic Games announced some remarkable news yesterday: That Fortnite had passed 40 million players and over 2 million concurrent players.

The new high for the game comes, incredibly, just a month after the 2018 Game Awards, where Epic revealed that Fortnite had surpassed 30 million players and a record 1.3 million concurrent players.

By comparison, Fortnite's biggest competitor, PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds (PUBG), hit 30 million players across PC and Xbox One in December.

Speaking about the new Fortnite achievement, Eric Williamson, Lead Systems Designer on Fortnite Battle Royale said:

"We’re really excited and quite proud to announce that we’ve now had more than 40 million Fortnite players. We’d just announced last month, in December, that we reached 30 million and to see the growth in such a short period of time and reach such a big milestone is really incredible.

"We’re super proud of that number and we want to continue to listen and take feedback from players and keep growing the game providing a fantastic experience for everyone."

Though Fortnite originally started as a paid game with a 'Save the World' mode, the amazing growth of the game is unquestionably down to the popularity of the title's free mode, Battle Royale.

This new Fortnite update took many fans by surprise and speaking exclusively to Daily Star Online, we've been able to learn a little bit more about the upcoming changes.

This includes: new areas and cities, greater definition to the game with proper biomes and a whole host of additional fixes.

A lot of which you can see in the gallery above.

And again speaking exclusively to Daily Star Online, Eric Williamson also told us:

"When we launched back in September we knew the map was a good base for the gameplay we wanted to create, but there were probably some things we could do to make it better and some areas that were sparse that could be improved and made more interesting.

"With this new update, we’ve added more points of interest, meaning more places to land places to explore and fight in. We’ve added a big city, which a lot of people have been asking for in the community.

"Overall, we’ve just tried to add more variety and unique styles of gameplay across the map."

New and improved biomes have also given the map greater definition and fidelity.

"The map before was one shade of green, but now it’s many shades," joked David Spalinski, Lead Level Designer for the game.

On a serious note though, players should notice different trees, foliage and much more when exploring the Battle Royale map.

"It's easier to tell where you are in the map now because the biomes are more distinctive. You know that if you’re in the mountainy forest area that you’re probably on the west side of the map.

But making the game look much better is also a consequence of some new engine tech working its magic behind the scenes.

"One of the reasons we could do all of this is because we’ve been able to add some new features to stream in and out areas of the map, so essentially we’ve added more to the map, but to fit more, we’ve needed to be more efficient in how we handle how much data is loaded," Sidney Rauchberger, Lead Level Designer told us.

"The map is large, but this new streaming tech allows us to not use the areas you’re nowhere near in the game, that way we can add more to the areas you are close to."

These map updates are planned to go live at some point on later this week.